Social_Policy

SHS 103 Case Study #4 Due July 18 20 points Golden makes several suggestions regarding changes to the child welfare system in her Op-ed article. What are your opinions about her suggestions' Do you believe they are valid and workable' Given what you know about the child welfare system, could the system work with these changes' I feel the suggestions made by Olivia Golden are a great start. "Fail safe" strategies, minimum staffing requirements. When Ms. Golden said, "you can't learn what's wrong with the system from just one case. Understanding what to fix requires analyzing many cases". I think her statement made was 100% accurate. It seems as though there is a lot of finger pointing and blaming that take place from the general public when they look at our Child Welfare System. When something goes wrong in life it seems an inherent nature to first blame somebody or some agency that could have or should have done more. We have to stop blaming and start helping if we're really as concerned as we often claim to be. What Ms. Golden is suggesting as possible changes is more than workable as long as there is a system of checks and balances. You can have as many policies and guidelines as you want within an organization, but if nobody is making sure they are being upheld there absolutely pointless. What I know about our current Child Welfare System is, in general I believe the caseworkers are doing all they can given what rules and guidelines they are required to work within. For changes like Ms. Golden is suggesting or any others to actually take place there has to be changes made, first with the policies and procedures that the caseworkers are mandated by, otherwise their hands are tied. In the text it talked about the tremendous case loads Social Workers often have. Ms. Golden has an excellent suggestion to alleviate this, minimum staffing requirements. Is it really realistic to expect one individual to juggle 50 to 60 cases at a time and actually be affective at meeting all of those clients needs' I think not. The best service this family could have benefitted from in my opinion is drug treatment during Carlotta Brett-Pierce's pregnancy. At least there would have been a chance to intervene with Carlotta prior to her giving birth to a 1 pound 4 ounce premature baby girl. This drug intervention also could have helped to alleviate Carlotta's mental state while she was attempting to parent Marchella. There was clear indication that this help was needed from previous drug arrests prior to Marchella's conception. I understand that after Marchella's birth there was a certain level of drug treatment. It just seems as though that treatment was done after there was already a serious issue. Why can't we realize that preventative measures are far more successful than re active measures'